Sunday, November 30, 2014

I am downbehind the fanA metal face greets the rest of the sweatingdarkness for meThe machine that pullsthe cage togetherrattles itselfnor coping with errantbrushstrokes spitting upprepositions at right anglesto hungover storytelling"I think the hallway this section of the hallway glitches over here," said the man with the briefcase."I am down," said the woman carrying several notebooks."No, I'm not blaming you. I was just pointing out the funky area part of the hallway," said the man swinging his briefcase to point in the direction of what he was indicating."Sometimes the lab waste can really stink up the place," said the woman grimacing and then smiling thinking of Mord's comments on the last stench something along the lines of dead rotting gamey animal smoked in burnt rubber and baby diapers piled to perfection."Not bad smelling. Glitched as it doesn't render properly," said the man shaking the briefcase about as if to simulate a rip in the fabric of the simulation."Oh, that. Yeah, that's been there since the last wave," said the woman trying to figure out some lyrics she heard in a song at the bar last night or was it the night before that or was it the night before that?"Last wave? Of turnover?" asked the man with the briefcase jiggling it to the left and then to the right to represent whatever he thought it meant to anyone who might understand that particular movement of briefcases not knowing that one of the guys in the DLC department had a laminated chart in his cubicle."Actually, we're not sure. Some think it's turnover, some think it's management, and some think it's the new technology we're using," said the woman having possibly come to the conclusion that she might have confused a solution for the freecell game she got stuck in the other night with a game of mahjong or that she might have confused a solution for a mahjong game she got stuck in the other night with a game of freecell or that it might have been two other completely different games on her cellphone or her kindle the night before that or the night before that."That is the damnedest thing," said the man with the briefcase stepping back after noticing he had pulled his briefcase back away from that part of the hallway."One of the women in advertising thinks it could be a combination of software upgrades and turnover or a sequence of various combinations of combinations or the weather we've been having lately," said the woman scratching her head and feeling the anger in her jaw and gums towards how the local supermarket had rearranged their shampoo and body wash aisles."What weather?" asked the man with the briefcase checking to see if it had picked up any strange build-up from the air outside."Dust storms," said the woman."I didn't catch your name," asked the man with the briefcase loosening his grip on the handle ever so slightly to appear more nonchalant."You didn't catch my name because you were so focused on my ID# APN621," said the woman smiling an oh-by-the-way-go-fuck-yourself smile."What would happen if I walked through the glitched section of the hallway?" asked the man with the briefcase tightening his grip on the handle."Nothing, just brain damage," said the woman looking him in the eyes as he tried to maintain eye contact."That's a load of crap," said the man with the briefcase widening his eyes as he stared back at her."If you walk through that part of the hallway you might find yourself suddenly overcome with a sudden urge to visit the snack machine," said the woman making a smacking noise with her lips."Maybe it is the smell my senses are becoming more fucked up lately as I get older," said the man with the briefcase loosening his grip on the handle and worrying that it would slip out of his hand and fall to the floor and echo loudly in the corridor."Have you ever had a stroke?" asked the woman seeing the worry in his face."My family thinks it was a stroke, but I think I have always had trouble taking things in self-preservation you know and expressing myself," said the man with the briefcase gently bumping the side of it against his right kneecap."I doubt it. The cameras at both ends have taken in an overly long conversation an exchange of loads loads of crap as you would say. I tend to tarry when people like yourself think they can fuck others after they've had their way with words when they see glitches. Don't think I'm going to tell you don't hold your breath because I want you to hold your breath. I want to see your face turn purple with every wave every wave that is more seamless than the next. You may have a bad allergy season here and there, but you'll just wipe it all off along with the build-up on your briefcase.""I don't have any allergies," said the man with the briefcase swinging his briefcase a little."Lucky you," said the woman.I am downbehind the fanA metal face greets the rest of the sweatingdarkness for meThe machine that pullsthe cage togetherrattles itselfnor coping with errantbrushstrokes spitting upprepositions at right anglesto hungover storytelling

Saturday, November 15, 2014

The soda machine's noise kicked on and drowned them out their gibberish in the adjacent office storage muffles our noise with a noise of its own its own standing in the back alphabetized to the back or shuffled to the back the not so random shuffling to the back of the container of jarred cubicles he woke up with a headache and pain in his stomach after grinding his teeth through a night of nightmares there were several but he remembered only one at the moment and only a piece of that one was left something about a very large bug eating at his groin in a graveyard the pain was always higher up and he was dead down below the what they called the basement when they looked at the house by the ocean that flowed into the streets that must have been from another one of his nightmares earlier in the program more dust from the desert was getting in under the door where the weather stripping was missing."Can I bring him in?" asked the pale officer standing in the doorway."What have you cut out of your diet now?" asked Lurk sitting at his desk."Why? Why do you ask?" asked the pale officer stepping back a bit and thought about rubbing his hands together at the heels and how it would feel the bone and skin working the cud of his melancholy but resisting knowing the probing questions it would generate."No reason. It couldn't possibly be your dour imitation of a chalk outline," muttered Lurk listening to another screw pop out of his chair."I do feel like I'm slowly being erased inside the lines," offered the pale officer trying vainly to bring back to his mind which article of clothing that marked playing card had ended up in."What did you ask me about?" asked Lurk experimenting with the new fucked up position the chair tilted in."What's wrong with your chair?" asked the pale officer suddenly thinking of another definition of escort interrupting his image of his laundry room and the card swishing in a wet ass pocket.""Curiosity dragged out the cat's life as it climbed the chart of most popular defense mechanisms," croaked Lurk staring at the weird shape on the wall drawn in brown marker."I need to change their litter when I get home," said the pale officer inadequately using cars to substitute for feline shit logs in his brain."If you get home," said Lurk."If I get home," said the pale officer."Did you ask me something?" asked Lurk."When?" asked the pale officer."I don't know. Why did you come back here?" asked Lurk an upside down neon tetra floated in his thoughts."Let me go to shift command and ask," said the pale officer taking a few steps to leave."You're going to shift command to have them dislodge your memory?" asked Lurk."Sure. Why not? I'll throw in an apology as well as a recitation of some barely related block of text of policy," said the pale officer."That's jacked," said Lurk."How is that jacked?" asked the pale officer."It's jacked like the jack of clubs," explained Lurk realizing he forgot to flush after his last restroom visit following that heavy lunch."Why did you put it like that?" asked the pale officer."Put it like what?" asked Lurk."All this talk about playing cards?" asked the pale officer."I bought this crappy deck the last time I traveled. The last time I traveled. The last time. Couldn't make out what anything was. The last time I traveled. The last time," said Lurk trailing off into a mumble."The last time," said the pale officer."The last time," said Lurk. "Why does it bother you so much how I put it?" Lurk asked."I'm not bothered," insisted the pale officer."The color went out of your face," said Lurk."I thought the color was already out of my face," said the pale officer."It is. It just looked like it was the next stage of some anemic fading," said Lurk seeing his one and only failed gardening project superimposed over his inbox."It," said the pale officer."It," repeated Lurk. "My place is a mess," said the pale officer."And you're telling me this because?" asked Lurk watching something bob in his water bottle after he took a sip."I was watching this thing on TV," said the pale officer, "this thing on TV about a bus driver who is waiting for one more person to start taking his route who wears headphones and he will decide that day to drive them all to their deaths as they listen to their music and audiobooks and talk although he hasn't worked out what would be the best place to drive them and then this old woman with her granddaughter get on and the little girl talks his ear off. At the end of the day he goes home to kill himself it was either a bottle of pills or something else I don't remember and instead he decides to clean his house and they show him starting with his toilet. And I sat there watching this smelling my couch smelling my house smelling myself and I got up to go to take a dump and I sat there holding it and then I let it go not all of it I held a little back some of it getting stuck on its own and then I let the rest go some of it letting go on its own. And here I am taking another shift staying over thinking I'm between shifts between cleaning my couch and not cleaning my couch between taking the garbage out now or taking the garbage out tomorrow between listening to something or not listening to something no matter where it comes from a flat-screen or a person and no matter where it comes from I'm listening or not listening something is telling or something is telling something is always telling."KeysI lost my keysCan't get the cabinet door openThe potatoes have long armsScratching crouchingpulling at stringsdangling at the endsof what they saidwhat they sendfrom outside the townoutside the distant townLurk went on, "I was playing a video game and after I had finished another quest I looked at the book of monsters.""Book of monsters?" asked the pale officer."The monsters I had killed," said Lurk, "I could click on each picture and see how many of each I had wasted. I could click up to page 6, but the arrow went all the way to page 30 with a place for a picture of each species. 8 on every page. You know how many that is?""240," answered the pale officer thinking about whether he would go shopping or leave another item off his menu.The soda machine's noise kicked on and drowned them out their gibberish in the adjacent office storage muffles our noise with a noise of its own its own standing in the back alphabetized to the back or shuffled to the back the not so random shuffling to the back of the container of jarred cubicles he woke up with a headache and pain in his stomach after grinding his teeth through a night of nightmares there were several but he remembered only one at the moment and only a piece of that one was left something about a very large bug eating at his groin in a graveyard the pain was always higher up and he was dead down below the what they called the basement when they looked at the house by the ocean that flowed into the streets that must have been from another one of his nightmares earlier in the program more dust from the desert was getting in under the door where the weather stripping was missing.- Max Stoltenberg